On 26 September 1957, the Winter Garden Theatre—one of the Broadway theatres located between 50th and 51st Streets in midtown Manhattan—opened with a musical inspired by William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. With a libretto by Arthur Laurents, lyrics by Stephen

Leonard Bernstein’s Mass was commissioned by Jacqueline Kennedy as part of the opening ceremony for the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. It premiered on 8 September 1971 and is based on the Roman Catholic

Leonard Bernstein had always longed to write the Great American Opera. Yet, as it happens, he ended up writing the great American musical! In 1949, the theater producer and dance choreographer Jerome Robbins envisioned a modern adaptation of Shakespeare’s Romeo

Leonard Bernstein undoubtedly was one of the most supremely talented interpretive musicians of the 20th century. Yet his compositional talents, as Mstislav Rostropovich has argued, “are simply not on par with his abilities as an interpreter.” Leon Botstein, President of

Felicia Montealegre was a stunningly beautiful Chilean stage and television actress making her living in New York. Leonard Bernstein was the wonder boy of the American classical music scene, who had made his spectacular conducting debut with the New York

An Interpretive Genius There can be no doubt that Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990) was “one of the most prodigiously talented and successful musicians in American history.” He once told the New York Times, “I want to conduct. I want to play

If we look at Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990) we see a musician who came to embody the best of classical music. He was a conductor, most famously making his debut in 1943 with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra on a moment’s